Sunday, October 26, 2008

Unit Lesson Plan

Standard 6.2 (civics) all students will know , understand and appreciate the values and principles of American Democracy and the rights responsibilities and roles of a citizen in the nation and the world. 6.2.9. B.5 & 6.2.10.B.5 Analyze the successes of American society and disparities between America ideals and reality in American political, social and economic life and suggest ways to address them. (e.g. rights of minorities , woman, physically and mentally challenged individuals, foreign born)

Overarching Understanding

Students should understand that what happened in the past effects them today. Students should understand that what they do will affect the future.

Overarching

Topical


  • What American values and principals do you believe in?
  • Why do you believe in them?
  • How did these values and principals develop in you?
  • What American values don’t you believe in & why?
  • How can we change American values?
  • Why study Social Studies?
  • List the values and principles of American society.
  • Where did we get these from and how were they developed?
  • How are American Democratic principles different from real life?
  • What is your responsibility as a citizen?




Related Misconceptions

Students always think their ideas and values are original and nothing in the past contributed to them. They think that what they do does not count and that disparities between ideas and reality are aimed at them.

Knowledge

Students will know…

Skills

Students will be able to…

  • Their rights and responsibilities under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
  • Who the framers of the constitution were and why they wrote the constitution.
  • Why people protest and sign petitions.
  • How Bills become laws.
  • What American ideals and values are?

  • Read and interpret the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
  • View American culture and analyze their values.
  • Plan a future society.
  • Debating skills.

Assessment Evidence (Stage 2)

Performance Task Description

Goal

Plan and create your own society, including its values.

Role

You are an ideal society planner.

Audience

The Earth has been devastated by World War III and you must help rebuild society.

Situation

Create a society that will prevent wars is the challenge.

Product/Performance

You need to develop a written plan people know their rights.

Standards

Your work will judged by applying our problem solving skills rubric.

Other Evidence

Put on a debate about why their society is better than others people’s society. Write a Rap Song about their societal values.

Learning Plan (Stage 3)

Where are your students headed? Where have they been? How will you make sure the students know where they are going?

Introduce the Essential Questions and discuss the culminating unit performance task.

How will you hook students at the beginning of the unit?

I took a line from the Rap song “My Life” by T.I. ask the students what does it mean and then play the song. “Safe to say I paved the way for you cats to get paid today.”

What events will help students experience and explore the big idea and questions in the unit? How will you equip them with needed skills and knowledge?

In cooperative groups discuss and write down what values they believe in. Compare them to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to see how many of them the same are.

How will you cause students to reflect and rethink? How will you guide them in rehearsing, revising, and refining their work?

Reflect and discuss as a class where they got their values from. Model by discussing where I got my values from – church, family, school, movies, books songs.

How will you help students to exhibit and self-evaluate their growing skills, knowledge, and understanding throughout the unit?

Write a book report about a framer of the constitution whose values are most like yours. Write what those values are and where they got their values from.

How will you tailor and otherwise personalize the learning plan to optimize the engagement and effectiveness of ALL students, without compromising the goals of the unit?

Each student will pick American values and principles that they don’t agree with. They can then either discuss with the class or small group or write why they don’t agree and how to make it better.

How will you organize and sequence the learning activities to optimize the engagement and achievement of ALL students?

I am pretty. Comfortable with the sequence of my unit plan. It begins with where the students are headed and a hook and proceeds logically through developing needed knowledge through various learning experiences.



7 comments:

pinkkeri said...

I like the overaching ideas behind this lesson... A LOT! I especially like your project about the future society. I just did a project on dystopias related to Margarat Atwood's novel, _The_Handmaid's_Tale which deals with a futuristic society that looks a whole lot different from our society today. I really like how you put the responsibility of learning on the students too. I'm struggling with that aspect of my lesson right now (haven't posted it yet because of that). And lastly, I appreciate that you kept your lesson simple and didn't junk it up with unimportant work.

Barry Bachenheimer said...

I like the idea you came up with. A question-- how will you assess understanding in terms of the society that the students create?

phyllis said...

I handed in this lesson plans to my principle. I also started the lesson. The beginning went well , but then two students got into a fight and another student had a breakdown. I will continue to try out this lesson plan tomorrow. My assessment based on a rubric.

United Educators' Fund said...

Good job with this lesson. i really never thought there would be this much information on the particular subject. It appears that you really planned for the unit and that teaching it may become a breeze.

k8celadon said...

What an interesting lesson -- I'm eager to see how it goes... I would maybe make the overarching question more broad -- like "What is a society?" or "Who makes up a society?" Otherwise, really interesting topic to think about...

Anonymous said...

Very important issues. I thought this one was particularly thought-provoking: How can we change American values?

Erica's Blog said...

It's so important to teach debate skills! I ran a debate club at my school with fifth graders and it was such a foreign concept to them. It was great practice for them to defend a view that they don't agree with.
Maybe you can add to the misconceptions that disagreeing is bad, or that it's rude to be controversial, or that you can't argue about something you don't believe in. What do you think?